


Your Pulse in the Pages

by AngelWithAStory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Male-Female Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelWithAStory/pseuds/AngelWithAStory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Keyleth first learned to write, she told stories in the sky.<br/>Years later, Keyleth would listen as people spoke and transcribe the conversation as it went.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Pulse in the Pages

**Author's Note:**

> Character studies are really really fun okay
> 
> also the angst is only at the end, so it's 90% fluff and character study
> 
> title from Poet by Bastille

When Keyleth first learned to write, she told stories in the sky.

Her handwriting was sloppy at first. Unpracticed. Rushed. Excited.

She loved writing the stories her father told her. Stories about a brave princess who rode her trusty steed to great adventures. Stories about a mighty flower that saw civilizations rise and fall and granted wishes to the beings that cared for it. Stories about her mother in her youth.

They were never illustrated. Keyleth didn’t like any kind of drawing beyond sketches and idle doodles. Her stories stayed written down. Pictures would have taken away the fun of it.

 

Years later, Keyleth would listen as people spoke and transcribe the conversation as it went. At first, it put people off.

They thought she wasn’t paying attention. That she was mocking them. That she was being rude.

Vox Machina had to talk a good few people down from a self-induced rage over Keyleth’s scribblings. They tried to tell her to be more _discreet_ about taking notes, or to maybe not take them at all.

Keyleth tried to follow their advice.

But she would forget things. She didn’t want to forget things.

Sometimes it was small details: a barkeeper's name who pointed them in the right direction to an inn, the name of a small village they passed through and bought a few potions from, some guard that they charmed into giving them access somewhere they _really_ shouldn’t have been allowed.

Sometimes it was bigger details: a mysterious man who hired them to retrieve a mysterious artifact and Vex had to tell Keyleth his name half a dozen times; a small town they stayed in for a few weeks that Keyleth just _couldn’t_ seem to remember correctly; Pike’s grandfather’s name that made Keyleth feel horrible when it just escaped her grasp.

The others could _feel_ the effect that notebook had on her. So they encouraged it.

Keyleth would eagerly listen in to conversations, scrambling to find her leather bound book and quill to hastily write down a quarry or destination or item of interest. She would write down directions as little arrows and maybe a street name if she caught it. She would ask for descriptions of items and hastily sketch it out in ink, if only to visualise what they needed to find.

The notes were messy, inkstained and rushed. Her hands were splotched with blue that faded to a light purple. Sometimes she would forget and end up with fingerprints on her neck where she hastily threw her hair out of her face, or along her temple when she wiped away sweat.

(Tiberius would watch for those marks and quickly prestidigitation them away if he caught them.)

It wasn’t until Percy that the notes began to take shape.

Keyleth watched Percy as he carefully sketched out ideas in his own book and wrote details, succinct notes of dimensions or materials.

He didn’t detail his life. He detailed his mind.

Percy looked almost stricken by Keyleth’s mess of a notebook, but he had to admire her dedication to detail. They were scattered around and inconsistent, but Percy could piece together an entire tome from it.

After that, Keyleth’s notes became noticeably neater.

Maybe it was because Keyleth practiced her handwriting by the fire while on watch until even at her quickest pace it was legible by anyone. Maybe it was because Percy had a memory like a steel trap and would tirelessly relay information to Keyleth as many times as it took for her to get it all down.

When Keyleth’s notebook ran out, Tiberius bought her another one. He played it off as passing along an old book that he had no use for, but Keyleth saw through it.

She copied over the most recent details and tucked the old and tattered book in the bottom of her bag.

It became a habit, really.

Keyleth would take notes, sometimes asking for things to be repeated so she could get it down properly. If someone else couldn’t remember a name or a place, Keyleth would furiously flip through the pages of her notebook, digging out older ones if she needed to. She was an on-call bank of information pertaining to Vox Machina and their history.

Her room in Greyskull Keep had shelves lined with notebooks. Small ones that she only intended to use temporarily as she waited until she got a nice one. Beautiful, leather bound notebooks with patterns engraved into them that she usually received as presents from her friends if they found it. Simple, paperback ones that were well thumbed and scruffy from their travels.

After the Chroma Conclave, Keyleth took her all her notebooks and brought them with her to Whitestone. Her bag bulged and Grog put some of them in the Bag of Holding just so Keyleth wasn’t dragged down by the weight of their past. (Keyleth took them back as soon as the last refugees had been transported. She didn’t want to be away from them for too long while the whole world was hanging in the balance.)

The first night, Percy gently took her arm and lead her to the library in the castle.

He showed her a shelf that he had cleaned off just for her. They spent most of the night organising the notebooks, trying to figure out the timeline and swapping memories and laughter as the writing brought them back to better times.

The shelf stuck out amongst the old history books surrounding it, but the shelf stayed like that regardless.

When Keyleth finished a new book, she added it to the shelf in the library. The collection grew as they felled the dragons. The collection grew as they rebuilt Emon. The collection grew as they did.

 

Years down the line, Vox Machina faded from whispers amongst the people, to a legend told to children with wide-eyes, to a myth only the elders knew. Their names lived on as their bodies lay to rest.

Years down the line, a small child with a large name would wander the library and come across a strange shelf with uneven books and pull one out. They would read the slightly faded lines and flip the pages with careful hands, taking in the story. They would frown and tuck the book under their arm.

Years down the line, the small child would tug on a old woman’s robes and hold out the book nervously.

“ _Kiki? I found this in the library. It has your name in it_.” The child would say.

A druid would take the book in her hands, run her fingers over the cover, and she would wipe away a single tear.

“ _I wrote this a long time ago. It’s about my friends, and how we saved the world_.”

Years down the line, Keyleth would sit the child down and tell them everything.

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this](http://midground.tumblr.com/post/149672943338/headcanon) textpost that I fell in love with head over heels <3
> 
> I'm [queenmoggy](http://queenmoggy.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to say hi :3


End file.
